Some travel sites have no room for budget hotel aggregators

Online travel sites are divided on listing offerings from budget hotel aggregators. Companies such as MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and Yatra, which have their own budget hotel brands, are blocking offers from players such as Oyo and Zo Rooms.

Other online travel sites like Cleartrip and Expedia, however, are listing the budget room aggregators.

Rajesh Magow, CEO of MakeMyTrip, believes his brand of budget hotels under Value+ is superior to the current brands of budget aggregators such as Oyo and Zo Rooms.

Similarly, Yatra owns TG Rooms and TG Stays, while Goibibo is backing Go Stays on their respective platforms.

The largest online player MakeMyTrip is confident of its budget brand Value+.

“With Value+, MakeMyTrip intends to change the game by giving its brand assurance to the budget segment hotels, and hence, capitalise offline to online shift for hotel bookings. MakeMyTrip’s Value + offering is different from that of competition,’’ says Magow.

But this is not deterring budget hotel aggregators. Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, Oyo Rooms says, “Even if some of the online travel agents (OTAs) have de-listed us, there are others supporting us like Cleartrip and Expedia. We have acquired supply of budget rooms and technology to compete with them.’’

Amit Taneja, Chief Revenue Officer, Cleartrip, says, “As long as budget aggregators add value and give us comprehensive content, we will continue to have them on our platform. There is demand for the budget category in the sub ₹3,000 price range.’’

The decade-old Cleartrip does not have a budget brand of its own, but is willing to give more choice to consumers looking for budget accommodation. ``Just about every budget aggregator is on our site today ranging from Oyo, Zo to Treebo and Fab Hotels,’’ he adds.

Apart from Cleartrip, there are others like Expedia and Bookings.com who are willing to support such room aggregators.

There are also a number of small and new travel sites who continue to list budget rooms.

For instance, the three-year-old Musafir.com is also getting ready to include budget aggregators as part of its offering.

“We would be adding budget aggregators like Oyo and Zo on our site. We are not threatened by them unlike the bigger players who believe they would be creating monsters by supporting them in the budget hotel category. In our case, we are still small and would include them to give more options to our consumers,’’ says Vijay Keshavan, CEO, Musafir.

COMMENT NOW